Computing Ventricular Myocardial Thickness from 3D MRI Images

Abstract

A method for computing the thickness of the ventricular myocardium for 3D MRI data is presented. This method involves three steps — (1) identifying the boundary of the domain based on heart geometry, (2) solving the Laplace equation in this domain given the values at the boundary and (3) computing the length of the streamlines of the solution’s gradient. Unique to the heart geometry are locations where thickness may seem inherently ill-defined, however recourse to identification of the functional units allows the computation of a thickness that respects the functional organization and activity of the heart muscle. The quantification of thickness could be useful clinically to measure the health of the heart muscle.